Mile
Zero

August 31, 2009

Sure, we could have done something thought-provoking with our premise,
but it was that or the giant robot shootout. The choice was
clear.

Nobody doubts director Neill Blomkamp's technical chops, or his gift for
visually juxtaposing science fiction elements (robot policemen, aliens,
mecha) over footage of his native South Africa. It is, however, unclear
that he knows what it actually means when he does so. District 9
betrays a lack of insight--but just as much, a lack of
interest--in the implications of his special effects.

Why is [head alien] Christopher so much smarter than his
fellow refugees? How could he be the only one trying to find a way out,
or to know/care enough to clothe himself in a 'human' manner? And, if
humans and Prawn are able to understand each other by the time the
'footage' is released, why did the documentarians - because that's how
the first half of this film is framed - exclude interviews with any of
the aliens in favor of black South Africans telling us how threatened
they feel, and white South Africans denigrating the species as a whole?

And fellow commentator Nicole Stamp is
more blunt about the film's use of stereotypes:

Why can't the Nigerians just be people with logical motives like money
and weapons? Why do they have to go out of their way to be ooga-booga
savages? The film would still have held up without the narrative
elements of cannibalism and interspecies sex. Why do the blacks have to
be sexual degenerates who will eat filth and violate the oldest human
taboo by committing cannibalism? The only reason I see is to shoehorn
some cheap visceral thrills into the movie. It's lazy, sensationalist
writing, and it diminishes the potential for intelligent, nuanced
allegory. And it doesn't even make sense.

The portrayal of the gangsters bothered me for another reason.
As I was sitting in the theater, when one of the "documentary"
interviews comments on the Nigerian crime syndicates, a chuckle went
around the audience. The implication was pretty clear: for Americans,
Nigeria means spammers and criminals. Three cheers for international
stereotyping!

But ultimately, I found District 9's problems to be rooted less
in racism and more in a reluctance to engage. Despite being set in South
Africa, it's not really an apartheid movie. Despite dealing
conspicuously with refugees from outer space, it's not a post-war movie.
Nor is it a first-contact movie, or a film about immigration and
cross-cultural boundaries. Its goals are modest: to be an action movie,
and a showcase for an admittedly impressive set of special effects.

To some extent, this might be preferable to higher ambitions but less
success. Executed badly, movies in many of these subgenres are lucky to
be hackneyed, if they're not even more offensive than what they decry.
From that perspective, it's tempting to absolve Blomkamp for his film's
toothlessness--although I think no-one can realistically argue that we
live in a post-racist society, it's also hard to say that we need to be
told, once again, that apartheid was a bad idea.

Then again, to give him that pass is to treat science fiction simply as
a way to rehash simple object lessons from history--a failing often
embodied by Star Trek's well-meaning aliens-as-minority trope,
which is rarely flattering to anyone involved. In the last few years,
we've seen some great sci-fi that uses artistic license to examine
political questions (both new and old) from interesting directions:
BSG, Torchwood, Pan's Labrynth, Children of
Men, The Dark Knight--although they range widely in
subtlety, intelligence, and complexity, these movies are undeniably
engaged.

District 9 is not. While social redemption might be asking too
much, the film is notable in that it hardly ever, in the first half-hour
or so--and never after that--bothers to draw a comparison between its
South African setting and the alien segregation that theoretically
drives its alien-buddy-cop plotline. Nor does it consider the other
parallels--colonialism, technological exploitation, literal class
warfare--that might be drawn. In fact, by the end of the movie, the
status quo has been largely upheld. The resulting experience feels like
a bit of a let-down. Given such a compelling setup, you want to say,
this is the best you could do?